Cheap Junk Food and Treif Faux Kosher Meat in Germany, Surprised?

The Israeli media spent some time trying to rev up the public in favor of the "olim liBerlin" socio-economic protest group. Apparently it started more as a joke by Naor Narkis, a yored, an Israeli who left Israel for Europe and posted a picture of a cheap chocolate pudding on his facebook page.

Of course it's pretty dumb to act like these unhealthy snacks are vital to people's diet. And the fact that the Israeli Milky is supposed to be of higher quality than the German pudding Naor Narkis promoted as a bargain worth moving to Berlin for.

According to Narkis, Milky pudding is “just an example of a simple pleasure that became expensive, that too many parents have to think about twice before putting in their shopping cart. (Jerusalem Post)

Do to the extremely unhealthy aspects of these puddings, whether Israeli or German, parents should "think twice" before buying and serving them!

Very few people showed up at the rally, not even Narkis bothered. It was a joke.

Dozens file into Rabin Square October 14 to learn about how to emigrate to Berlin. (photo credit:Lahav Harkov)

But what isn't a joke is the revelation that for years one of the largest kosher butchers in Germany has been lying and cheating their Jewish clients, including a Jewish school and old age home,  selling traif, meaning non-kosher meat.

Two Jewish men in Germany, accused of passing off non-kosher meat as kosher to members of the Frankfurt Jewish community over a period of two years, according to local media.
In all, 40,000 kg. of non-kosher meat was sold to unsuspecting customers for a period of years, according to the Juedische Allgemeine......The butcher shop supplied kosher meat to a Jewish school, a nursing home and numerous private residences both within Frankfurt and other locales.

There's more than a simple localized irony in this.

It's not just a German story. It's a story of Jews living in Israel versus any place else in the world. The aim of the Nazis was for Germany to take over the world and to destroy the Jewish People. As we all know, the Nazis were defeated. Germany was divided into two countries for a few decades. And the State of Israel, the only Jewish State in the world was established in our ancestral Homeland.

Despite the loss of six million Jews to the antisemitic Nazi murder machine, the Jewish People, with the Help of G-d, established a state that has survived many defensive wars in its sixty-six years. As small as we are, there's international focus on everything we do and everything our politicians say. We stand diplomatically alone without any reliable allies.

Life in the diaspora may seem attractive with its cheap pudding, but it all ends up traif, like the fake kosher butcher. The myth of the "easy American life" is easily proven a lie when you add up tuition for Jewish education, outrageously expensive healthcare, Torah observant Jews being forced to use all of their vacation days on Jewish Holidays, no mandated maternity leave and more difficulties.

There's only one place a Jew should live, and that's the Land of Israel. We've been here since soon after our wedding in 1970. Then it was still rather unique for American Jews to make aliyah, move to Israel. Now there's hardly a Jewish family abroad without members or friends here.

Yesterday I was interviewed for Arutz 7's aliyah radio show. I'm not quite sure when it will be broadcast, but it should be this week, because the them of the show is "Bereishit," in the Beginning, new beginnings. I spoke about education, helping your children adjust to new schools and the importance of learning Hebrew.